Landscape Lighting Cost in 2026: Per Fixture, per System and to Run

Most landscape lighting price pages give one national range and a list of fixture prices with no source. The ranges they publish are usually right in the middle and wrong at both ends, because the two things that move a quote most are rarely shown: which tier of fixture is going in the ground, and how many crew-hours the site will eat.

This page builds the price from the parts. Fixture, lamp, transformer and cable prices come from manufacturers’ and suppliers’ published price pages, checked in October 2026. Labor uses BLS wage data for electricians and landscaping workers (OEWS, May 2025). Overhead and profit come from how electrical contractors’ revenue splits in the 2022 Economic Census. Running costs use the EIA’s residential electricity price by state. The arithmetic is in the method box near the end, and the same numbers drive the calculator. For other project prices, see our cost guides and the overall landscaping cost breakdown.

Landscape lighting cost per fixture, by type

Installers price landscape lighting by the fixture, and the fixture price already includes the lamp, its share of cable and connectors, the digging, the connections and the night-time aiming. The three installed columns below are three hardware tiers on the same labor model: a value line of lamp-ready fixtures, solid cast-brass fixtures sold direct by a manufacturer, and pro-channel fixtures priced at the list price retailers show. The transformer is separate and comes in the next section.

Fixture type	What it lights	DIY parts per fixture	Installed, value line	Installed, solid brass	Installed, pro-grade at list	Crew-hours assumed
Path light	Walks, bed edges, steps down a slope	$73–$110	$155	$225	$500	0.50–0.75
Spotlight / uplight	Trees, walls, columns, signs	$74–$98	$155	$205	$465	0.50–0.75
In-ground well light	Tree trunks and walls from below grade, lawn areas	$109–$116	$255	$295	$725	1.00–1.50
Deck or step light	Stair risers, deck posts, wall caps	$83–$111	$195	$275	$650	0.75–1.50
Typical mix (50% path, 35% spot, 10% well, 5% step)	A front yard and walk	About $80–$105	$165	$225	$520	About 0.6–0.9

Number of fixtures (fixtures)Fixture typeTypical mix (half path lights, a third spotlights, some well and step lights)Path lightsSpotlights / uplightsIn-ground well lightsDeck and step lightsInstall conditionsNew landscape, open beds, short runsEstablished lawn and planting bedsRetrofit through hardscape or walls, long runs

Add-ons

300-watt transformer with photocell, installed ($470 to $820) Upsize to a 600-watt transformer (very large or high-output systems) ($65 to $305) Smart Wi-Fi/app controller, installed ($125 to $200) New outdoor GFCI outlet by an electrician (before permit fee) ($195 to $410)

Estimated installed cost$3,610 to $10,700

Low end uses value-line fixtures, high end pro-grade fixtures at list price, both with LED lamps. Excludes permits, new circuits and design fees. Local prices vary; see How we built these numbers.

The spread inside each row is mostly hardware, not labor. A value-line path light and its lamp cost $55.98 at VOLT’s published prices (a $39.99 Essentials fixture plus a $15.99 G4 LED lamp). A Kichler integrated-LED dome path light lists at $259.99. Same hole, same cable, same 30 minutes of a two-person crew, and the installed price roughly triples.

Well lights and step lights cost more for a different reason: time. A well light needs a hole dug 10 to 12 inches deep in heavy soil and a sleeve of 4-inch PVC so the fixture sits level and stays put, according to VOLT’s well-light installation guide. A step light goes into a wall, riser or deck board, so the crew is coring masonry or cutting wood, not just pushing a stake into mulch. Our model doubles the crew-hours for those two types at the high end.

1. Path light155
2. Spotlight155
3. Well light255
4. Deck/step light195
5. Typical mix165

Source: Green Industry Report estimates from VOLT Lighting and Kichler (list via Sprinkler Supply Store) prices checked Oct. 13, 2026, BLS OEWS May 2025 and Census 2022 Economic Census (NAICS 238210) Includes lamp, cable share, connectors, labor, overhead and profit; transformer excluded. Estimates, see method.

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	Value line	Solid brass	Pro-grade at list
Path light	155	225	500
Spotlight	155	205	465
Well light	255	295	725
Deck/step light	195	275	650
Typical mix	165	225	520

Integrated LED or lamp-ready?

Lamp-ready fixtures take a replaceable bi-pin (G4) or MR16 LED lamp, which the buyer chooses by wattage, beam spread and color temperature. VOLT sells its standard LED MR16 lamp for $13.99 and rates it for 50,000 hours to L70 (the point where output falls to 70 percent). Integrated fixtures have the LED built in. They save the lamp purchase, but when the LED board fails the repair can mean replacing the whole fixture. For a homeowner, lamp-ready is the safer bet on a system meant to last 15 years or more; integrated makes sense where the fixture is small or hard to reach, such as a step light set into a wall.

What a whole system costs, from 10 to 60 fixtures

A quote is fixtures times a per-fixture price, plus the transformer. The table uses the typical mix above and one 300-watt transformer with a photocell up to 40 fixtures. The LED load column assumes an average of 4 watts per fixture, which sits between VOLT’s 3-watt G4 path lamp and 5-watt MR16 spot lamp.

Fixtures	LED load (4 W avg.)	Smallest transformer at 80% loading	Installed estimate, value line	Installed estimate, pro-grade at list	Two-person crew time (est.)
10	40 W	50 W (100 W common)	$2,100	$6,000	About 1 day
15	60 W	75 W	$2,900	$8,600	About 1 day
20	80 W	100 W	$3,800	$11,200	1.5 to 2.5 days
30	120 W	150 W	$5,400	$16,400	2 to 3.5 days
40	160 W	200 W	$7,100	$21,600	3 to 4.5 days
60	240 W	300 W at the limit; 600 W in practice	$10,400	$32,300	4.5 to 7 days

Two things in that table surprise people. First, a 300-watt transformer has room for about 60 LED fixtures on load alone; with 20-watt halogen lamps the same transformer carried 12. Second, the price per fixture barely falls as systems grow, because the crew time scales with the fixture count. The transformer is the only real fixed cost, and on a 20-light job it is 12 percent of the value-line total and 7 percent of the pro-grade one.

• Value line
• Pro-grade at list

Source: Green Industry Report estimates; typical fixture mix plus one 300 W transformer with photocell (600 W at 60 fixtures) Estimates, see method. Excludes permits, new circuits and design fees.

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	Value line	Pro-grade at list
10	2,100	6,000
15	2,900	8,600
20	3,800	11,200
30	5,400	16,400
40	7,100	21,600
60	10,400	32,300

How many fixtures does a yard need?

For walks, VOLT’s path-light selection guide gives a simple formula: add the fixture’s beam spread to the path length, divide by the beam spread and round up. A 50-foot path with a 16-foot spread needs (50 + 16) / 16 = 4.1, so 5 fixtures, more if you stagger them on both sides. For trees and walls the count is design, not arithmetic: one spotlight for a small tree, two or three for a broad canopy or a wide wall. As a worked example, a 50-foot walk lit from both sides (8 to 10 fixtures), two trees at two spotlights each and four lights washing the front of the house add up to 16 to 18 fixtures, which is why the 20-fixture row is a useful one to compare quotes against.

Line by line: where the money goes on a 20-light job

Here is the same 20-fixture system broken into the lines a detailed quote should show: 10 path lights, 7 spotlights, 2 well lights and 1 step light, on one 300-watt transformer.

Line item	Value line	Share	Pro-grade at list	Share
Fixtures and LED lamps	$1,209	32%	$5,289	47%
12/2 direct-burial cable	$234 (400 ft)	6%	$350 (600 ft)	3%
Waterproof connectors	$110	3%	$160	1%
Transformer and photocell	$253	7%	$449	4%
Crew labor with benefits	$748 (12.25 crew-hours)	20%	$1,242 (18.75 crew-hours)	11%
Overhead, equipment, insurance and profit	$1,260	33%	$3,696	33%
Total	$3,813	100%	$11,187	100%

The overhead line is not padding. Electrical contractors spent 30.9 percent of revenue on materials, 27.7 percent on payroll and 8.4 percent on benefits in 2022, according to the 2022 Economic Census. The remaining third covers trucks, trenchers, insurance, office staff, callbacks and profit. A quote far under the value-line column can be missing one of those, such as the return visit to re-aim fixtures after the plants fill in.

Transformer sizing: the 80 percent rule and what each size costs

The transformer steps 120-volt house power down to 12 to 15 volts. VOLT’s transformer installation guide says the National Electrical Code limits a circuit to 80 percent of its maximum load, so a 300-watt common tap has a working capacity of 240 watts. It then subtracts another 10 percent for losses in the wire and calls about 70 percent of the nameplate the optimal working load. Put the other way round: multiply your fixture wattage by about 1.25 (or 1.4 for the conservative version) and buy the next transformer size up. The same guide says the transformer must plug into a GFCI-protected circuit and sit at least 12 inches above the ground.

One refinement: LED drivers draw slightly more volt-amps (VA) than their wattage. VOLT’s lamp guide notes that VA, not watts, is the figure for sizing wire and transformers. Use the VA on the spec sheet when a manufacturer lists it.

Transformer	Published price	Working load at 80%	4-watt LED fixtures it can carry	Installed with photocell (est.)
VOLT Essentials 100 W	$99.99	80 W	20	Not modeled
VOLT 300 W multi-tap (12–15 V)	$229.99	240 W	60	$470
VOLT 600 W multi-tap	$274.99	480 W	120	$535
Kichler Pro Series 300 W (15PR300SS)	$376.56 list	240 W	60	$820
Kichler Pro Series 600 W	$581.51 list	480 W	120	$1,125
Kichler Pro Series 900 W (15PR900SS)	$1,037.53 list	720 W	180	$1,805

Load is rarely what forces a bigger or second transformer on an LED job. Distance is. Voltage drops along the cable, so far fixtures get less than 12 volts and dim. Multi-tap transformers solve this by letting the installer connect a long run to a higher tap; VOLT’s guide gives the example of a 100-foot run on the 15-volt tap to deliver 12 volts at the far fixtures. On a large property, a second transformer at the far end can cost less than hundreds of feet of heavy cable back to the house.

Cable: what each gauge costs per foot

Direct-burial cable	Price, 250 ft	Per foot	Typical use
16/2	$94.99	$0.38	Short leads, small kits
14/2	$112.99	$0.45	Short runs, few fixtures
12/2	$145.99	$0.58	Most residential home runs
10/2	$235.99	$0.94	Long or heavily loaded runs
8/2	$469.99	$1.88	Very long runs to a far hub

Cable is cheap relative to everything else, at 3 to 6 percent of a typical job. Moving from 12-gauge to 10-gauge on 400 feet adds about $145. That is a poor place for a contractor to save money and a reasonable place to ask questions if the quote does not say which gauge is going in.

Labor cost to install landscape lighting, state by state

Landscape lighting sits between two trades. Landscape companies install a lot of it; electricians handle the 120-volt side and much of the high-end work. Nationally, electricians earn a median $30.38 an hour and landscaping and groundskeeping workers $18.82, according to BLS OEWS (May 2025). With benefits at 30.2 percent of payroll (the 2022 ratio for electrical contractors), a two-person crew costs a contractor about $61 to $66 an hour before overhead.

The table applies each state’s median wages to the typical-mix fixture (about 0.71 crew-hours per fixture) and grosses that up for overhead. It also shows what 20 LED fixtures cost to run in that state, using the EIA’s average residential electricity price for January through July 2026. Wages are the bigger swing: the labor portion of a fixture runs from $56 in Arkansas to $97 in Oregon.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

State	Electricians, median hourly	Landscaping workers, median hourly	Labor portion per fixture (est.)	Residential electricity, cents/kWh	Yearly cost to run 20 LED fixtures, 5 h a night	Same, dusk to dawn
United States	$30.38	$18.82	$68	18.19	$29	$70
Alabama	$26.78	$17.13	$61	16.54	$27	$64
Alaska	$43.00	$22.93	$91	27.09	$44	$104
Arizona	$29.36	$18.71	$67	15.44	$25	$60
Arkansas	$23.59	$17.20	$56	13.61	$22	$52
California	$36.62	$21.90	$81	33.25	$53	$128
Colorado	$29.92	$22.00	$72	16.72	$27	$64
Connecticut	$37.28	$21.99	$82	27.97	$45	$108
Delaware	$30.63	$17.96	$67	17.86	$29	$69
District of Columbia	$37.97	$23.46	$85	24.66	$40	$95
Florida	$27.52	$17.84	$63	15.30	$25	$59
Georgia	$28.04	$18.25	$64	15.40	$25	$59
Hawaii	$46.38	$22.08	$95	46.28	$74	$178
Idaho	$30.29	$20.00	$70	12.96	$21	$50
Illinois	$47.87	$21.05	$95	19.22	$31	$74
Indiana	$32.93	$18.30	$71	17.04	$27	$66
Iowa	$29.26	$18.71	$66	14.20	$23	$55
Kansas	$31.66	$18.91	$70	15.21	$24	$59
Kentucky	$28.71	$17.63	$64	14.27	$23	$55
Louisiana	$29.59	$16.76	$64	13.35	$21	$51
Maine	$36.24	$22.10	$81	29.99	$48	$116
Maryland	$35.33	$18.93	$75	21.30	$34	$82
Massachusetts	$38.18	$23.40	$85	30.14	$48	$116
Michigan	$36.67	$18.33	$76	21.53	$35	$83
Minnesota	$37.58	$22.41	$83	16.25	$26	$63
Mississippi	$29.26	$15.21	$62	15.19	$24	$59
Missouri	$31.45	$18.52	$69	13.96	$22	$54
Montana	$36.90	$21.80	$81	13.95	$22	$54
Nebraska	$29.24	$18.82	$67	12.90	$21	$50
Nevada	$35.37	$18.66	$75	13.53	$22	$52
New Hampshire	$30.21	$21.58	$72	26.79	$43	$103
New Jersey	$37.14	$19.88	$79	23.98	$39	$92
New Mexico	$28.07	$18.06	$64	15.08	$24	$58
New York	$37.86	$21.56	$82	29.38	$47	$113
North Carolina	$27.31	$18.22	$63	14.94	$24	$58
North Dakota	$31.59	$19.61	$71	12.36	$20	$48
Ohio	$31.11	$18.38	$69	18.70	$30	$72
Oklahoma	$29.33	$17.20	$64	13.58	$22	$52
Oregon	$48.71	$21.65	$97	15.40	$25	$59
Pennsylvania	$32.50	$18.99	$71	21.04	$34	$81
Rhode Island	$35.62	$21.51	$79	29.22	$47	$113
South Carolina	$28.24	$17.65	$64	15.93	$26	$61
South Dakota	$29.51	$17.01	$64	14.50	$23	$56
Tennessee	$29.37	$17.80	$65	13.87	$22	$53
Texas	$28.16	$17.66	$63	16.06	$26	$62
Utah	$29.81	$19.59	$68	13.16	$21	$51
Vermont	$30.49	$22.23	$73	23.95	$38	$92
Virginia	$30.24	$18.46	$67	16.83	$27	$65
Washington	$45.78	$22.57	$95	14.40	$23	$56
West Virginia	$31.16	$15.50	$65	15.47	$25	$60
Wisconsin	$36.80	$19.82	$78	19.00	$31	$73
Wyoming	$36.59	$18.42	$76	13.95	$22	$54

1. Arkansas56
2. Florida63
3. Texas63
4. U.S.68
5. Arizona67
6. California81
7. New York82
8. Massachusetts85
9. Illinois95
10. Washington95
11. Oregon97

Source: Green Industry Report calculation from BLS OEWS May 2025 state medians for electricians (47-2111) and landscaping workers (37-3011), benefits and overhead ratios from the 2022 Economic Census (NAICS 238210) 0.7125 crew-hours per fixture; estimate.

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	Labor portion per typical-mix fixture ($)
Arkansas	56
Florida	63
Texas	63
U.S.	68
Arizona	67
California	81
New York	82
Massachusetts	85
Illinois	95
Washington	95
Oregon	97

Labor is only about 11 to 20 percent of a whole job in our model, so even the $41 spread between Arkansas and Oregon moves a 20-fixture quote by about $800. Hardware tier still matters more than geography. Where the state column bites is on retrofit work: boring under a concrete walk or coring a stone wall can double the hours on a fixture, and those hours are billed at local rates. Our landscaper pay data has the wage detail by metro area.

Do you need an electrician or a permit for landscape lighting?

Usually not for the low-voltage side, usually yes for anything that touches 120 volts, and the rules vary by state and city. The national model is the National Electrical Code (NFPA 70), which states and cities adopt with their own amendments. The parts that shape a landscape lighting job:

• Article 411 covers lighting systems operating at 30 volts or less. The system must be listed as a whole or assembled from listed parts, and the code keeps these systems at least 10 feet horizontally from the edge of a pool, spa or fountain unless Article 680 permits otherwise.
• Table 300.5 sets a minimum cover of 6 inches for “circuits for control of irrigation and landscape lighting limited to not more than 30 volts” installed in UF or other identified cable. A 120-volt circuit needs 6 to 24 inches depending on the wiring method, including 12 inches for a GFCI-protected residential circuit of 20 amps or less, and low-voltage cable under a home’s driveway needs 18 inches.
• Outdoor receptacles must be GFCI-protected (Section 210.8), and 15- and 20-amp receptacles in wet locations need a cover that stays weatherproof with a plug inserted, the “in-use” cover (Section 406.9).

Who may do the work is state law, and three examples show the range:

• Washington exempts underground low-voltage landscape lighting from electrical licensing and permits, but only if the power comes from a listed Class 2 power supply, the 120-volt equipment feeding it is installed by a licensed electrician, and nothing is installed within the scope of NEC Article 680 (pools and fountains), under WAC 296-46B-925(8). The NEC caps a Class 2 power source at 100 volt-amperes (NFPA 70, Chapter 9, Table 11(A)), and a 300-watt multi-tap transformer is well over that, so read the transformer’s label before assuming the exemption applies.
• California: the Contractors State License Board says a C-27 landscaping contractor may obtain permits and contract for electrical work such as yard lighting “provided the work is part of or incidental to an overall landscaping project” (CSLB Building Official Information Guide). A lighting-only job is a different question; see our California landscaper license lookups and the guide to checking a license.
• Los Angeles County exempts from electrical permits low-energy circuits powered from a source rated at no more than 30 volts and 1,000 volt-amperes, but adds that “a permit shall be obtained for the power supplies required by the above systems” (LA County Public Works, Work Exempt from Permits). In practice that means the new outlet or hardwired transformer connection, not the cable in the beds.

Our state-by-state licensing table covers the landscaping side. For a quote, the practical rule is simple: if there is no GFCI outlet within reach of the transformer location, budget for an electrician.

What an electrician adds for a new outdoor outlet

We estimate $195 to $410 for a new GFCI receptacle with an in-use cover where a circuit is already nearby, before any permit fee. That is 2 to 4 electrician hours at the national median to 75th-percentile wage ($30.38 to $40.36, BLS OEWS May 2025), plus a 20-amp weather-resistant GFCI receptacle at $32.53 and an in-use cover at $18.24 to $31.89 (Leviton’s store, checked Oct. 13, 2026), grossed up for overhead. A new circuit from the panel or a long trench is a separate, larger job.

This page is general information, not legal or electrical advice. Electrical codes, permit rules and licensing requirements are adopted and amended locally; confirm with your building department and state licensing agency before you hire or start work, and have any 120-volt work done by a licensed electrician where your state requires one.

How much landscape lighting adds to an electric bill

Very little, once the lamps are LED. The arithmetic is fixtures x watts x hours x price per kWh. Twenty fixtures averaging 4 watts, plus 10 percent for wire and transformer losses, draw 88 watts. At 5 hours a night (dusk to about 11 p.m.) that is 161 kWh a year, or $29 at the U.S. average residential price of 18.19 cents per kWh for January through July 2026 (EIA Table 5.6.B). Run the same system dusk to dawn, about 12 hours a night averaged over the year, and it is 385 kWh, or $70.

Halogen is where the old horror stories come from. VOLT markets its 2-watt LED G4 lamp as a replacement for a 15-watt halogen lamp, and the incandescent wedge lamp Kichler sells for older fixtures is rated 24.4 watts. At 20 watts a lamp, the same 20 fixtures on 5 hours a night use 803 kWh, or about $146 a year at the national price. If an older system is still running halogen, swapping lamps pays back in a season or two in high-price states.

1. North Dakota20
2. Louisiana21
3. Florida25
4. Texas26
5. U.S.29
6. New York47
7. Massachusetts48
8. California53
9. Hawaii74

Source: Green Industry Report calculation using EIA Electric Power Monthly Table 5.6.B residential prices, Jan.–July 2026 Includes 10% for wire and transformer losses; 1,825 hours a year.

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	LED, 4 W per fixture	Halogen, 20 W per lamp
North Dakota	20	99
Louisiana	21	107
Florida	25	123
Texas	26	129
U.S.	29	146
New York	47	236
Massachusetts	48	242
California	53	267
Hawaii	74	372

Timers, photocells and smart controllers

Every system needs something to switch it. The cheapest controls are add-ons to the transformer, and the smart options cost more in lamps than in the controller itself.

Control	Published price	What it does
Mechanical timer (VOLT)	$24.99	Fixed on/off times; drifts with the seasons and power cuts
Photocell (VOLT)	$22.99	On at dusk; pair with a timer for an off time
Astronomic digital timer (VOLT)	$45.99	Tracks sunset by date; holds an off time
Plug-in photocell (Kichler 15565BK)	$72.36 list	Dusk-to-dawn sensor for Kichler transformers
Smart control timer, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (Kichler 16085BK)	$101.27 list	App scheduling for the transformer as a whole
VOLT SMART Gateway	$69.99	Bridges app control to smart lamps; up to 127 devices
Smart color MR16 lamp vs. standard (VOLT)	$59.99 vs. $13.99	Per-fixture dimming, zones and color; adds $46 a fixture

Installed, a transformer-level smart controller runs an estimated $125 to $200. Lamp-level smart control is a different budget: at $46 more per lamp, putting smart lamps in 20 fixtures adds about $920 in parts alone. For most homes, an astronomic timer at under $50 does the job: on at sunset all year, off at a set hour. Smart lamps earn their cost where you want separate scenes (a dim late-night setting for the walk, the trees off after midnight) or where a dark-sky curfew applies to some fixtures but not others.

Dark-sky ordinances that change the design and the price

A growing number of cities regulate residential outdoor lighting, and the rules land hardest on uplights, the fixtures that make landscape lighting look like landscape lighting. Four examples, from strict to light:

• Flagstaff, Arizona. Zoning Code Division 10-50.70 classes landscape lighting as decorative Class 3 lighting and says that architectural and landscape lighting “directed upward onto a structure, tree, or other landscape feature is not allowed.” Downward-aimed landscape lighting counts against a per-lot lumen budget: 5,000 lumens in Lighting Zone 2 and 1,500 in Zone 1 for single-family homes, with fixtures not mounted to a building capped at 1,500 lumens in Zone 2 and not allowed in Zone 1. Solar lights of 5 watts or less used in residential landscaping are exempt.
• Tucson and unincorporated Pima County, Arizona. The 2012 Outdoor Lighting Code caps residential lighting at 55,000 lumens per acre in the brightest zone and 12,000 in the darkest, with unshielded light limited to 11,000 lumens per acre down to zero. Flood and spot lamps must be aimed no higher than 45 degrees to the horizontal, “half-way between straight down and straight to the side,” when the source is visible from any adjacent residential property, and fixtures within 25 feet of a neighbor’s lot line must be full cutoff. Pima County and Tucson have a proposed update out for public comment.
• Arizona statewide. A.R.S. 49-1102 requires all outdoor light fixtures to be fully or partially shielded, except incandescent fixtures of 150 watts or less and other sources of 70 watts or less. Low-voltage LED landscape fixtures fall under the exemption on wattage, which is why the city codes above matter more.
• Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky. The outdoor lighting text amendment adopted July 9, 2024, as summarized by the Urban County Government’s planning page, requires outdoor lights to be fully shielded and 3,000 Kelvin or below. Check the ordinance text for residential exemptions before you buy fixtures.

What this does to a quote: fully shielded path lights with a hat or louver, which the value and brass tiers above already include; spotlights with glare shields, louvers or long cowls, often a step up in price; warm lamps (2,700 K is the default on most of the lamps priced here); and a lumen budget that can cut the fixture count. In Flagstaff’s Zone 2, 1,500 lumens for fixtures not mounted to a building buys about five 300-lumen path lights and no uplights at all. Ask any installer working in a dark-sky jurisdiction to show the lumen total on the quote.

Maintenance costs and how long the system lasts

LED lamps outlast most of what surrounds them. VOLT rates its MR16 lamp at 50,000 hours to L70 and its 2-watt G4 lamp at 40,000 hours. At 5 hours a night that is 27 and 22 years; dusk to dawn, about 11 and 9 years. The fixtures, many of which carry lifetime warranties at VOLT, and the transformer usually outlive the first lamp change.

The recurring cost is the landscape, not the lights. Shrubs grow over path lights, mulch buries well lights, mowers and string trimmers knock spotlights off aim, and frost heave tilts stakes. We estimate a yearly tune-up of a 20-fixture system at $90 to $200: 1 to 2 crew-hours to re-aim, raise sunk fixtures, trim around lenses, check connections and reset the timer, at the crew rates above with overhead. Many owners do this themselves in an evening with a flashlight and pruners.

DIY or hire: what the parts list costs

Low-voltage systems are one of the few electrical-adjacent projects many homeowners can do themselves where local rules allow, because nothing past the plug runs at line voltage. The DIY column in the first table is the honest comparison: about $80 to $105 in parts per fixture for value-line or brass hardware, so roughly $1,600 to $2,100 for 20 fixtures plus $250 to $300 for a 300-watt transformer and photocell. VOLT also sells boxed kits, from a $230.99 Basics kit to $999.99 for six spotlights and four path lights.

What you give up by doing it yourself: the night-time aiming (the step that separates good lighting from lit-up yards), voltage readings at the far fixtures, and a warranty on the labor. What you keep: roughly half of the installed price on value-line or brass hardware. The jobs most worth hiring out are the ones with the most labor per fixture, such as well lights in lawn, step lights cored into masonry, and runs that cross a driveway, where cable needs 18 to 24 inches of cover or a raceway under the code tables above. If you are building a patio or wall anyway, run sleeves and cable before the hardscape goes in; see our paver patio and retaining wall cost guides.

Red flags in a landscape lighting quote

• No transformer size or load. The quote should name the transformer wattage and the total fixture load, and the load should be at or under 80 percent of capacity.
• No lamp spec. Lumens or wattage, beam spread and color temperature for each fixture type. “LED” alone tells you nothing.
• Halogen lamps in 2026. At five times the power for the same light, they cost more to run and force a bigger transformer.
• No cable gauge or burial depth. 12/2 and 6 inches of cover are the minimum to expect on most home runs.
• Transformer on a non-GFCI outlet or an outlet without an in-use cover.
• A “lighting package” price with no fixture count. Divide the total by the fixtures; anything over about $520 per fixture for a standard mix deserves an explanation.
• No night visit. Final aiming has to happen after dark, and the quote should say when.
• Uplights aimed at a neighbor’s windows or across a lot line in a city with a lighting code.